Monday, 7 January 2013

The Imelda Marcos gene has bypassed me completely. I'm a woman who finds no pleasure in shoe shopping. That's an understatement. I hate it! Why? I have flat, unusually wide, unattractive feet that don't fit into the majority of shoes on sale in high street stores. My stiletto high heel-wearing days ended in my 20s when I swapped elegance and style for trainers and flipflops.

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So where was I going to find an elegant pair of size 7, EEE width-fitting, wedding-compatible high heels for my wedding day that I could actually fit into and walk down the aisle in? AND.... my wedding dress was RED so where would I find red wedding shoes just the right shade to match my dress?

My first step was to get over my shoe-shopping phobia and start visiting shoe shops. I tried them all. Every high street outlet from Faith to Kurt Geiger. I tried old-lady favourites Clarks and Hotters - where at least I found shoes I could wedge my trotters into but couldn't find anything that could loosely be termed a 'wedding slipper'. I spent entire days visiting every shoe shop along Oxford Street, in Westfield Stratford, at Blue Water and in Bromley. On days out I looked in shop windows and on market stalls. I scoured the dodgy shoe racks in charity shops and vintage outlets. Nothing.

I consulted friends and asked if they thought it was feasible to walk down the aisle barefoot? No. I wasn't getting married on a beach. I had to have shoes and I had to have something fabulous with a heel or my long dress wouldn't look right.

It felt slightly ridiculous to start feeling anxiety and stress levels rising over a pair of shoes for one day. This wasn't part of the fairytale wedding planning experience!
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With only a couple of weeks to go to the big day I put my faith in Google and typed "Elegant" "shoes" and "wide feet" into the search bar. Up popped The Shoe Tailor, an online catalogue of shoes for those with wide and difficult to fit feet!! They even catered for style-conscious ladies with a foot width of EEEEEE!!! Maybe this was Cinderella's issue. Maybe the reason the glass slipper fit her foot alone was because she had an "EEEEEE" width foot! If the width of her feet didn't put off her prince, it wouldn't put off mine either.

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The Shoe Tailor had a lovely choice of elegant sandals and strappy party shoes, high heels, flats, ballet pumps, Mary-Jane's, stilletos, boots, sling-backs, wedges.... and all available to fit me. Who knew shoe shopping could be so much fun?

I ordered 4 pairs on home approval to try with my dress, a gold pair, a silver pair, a diamante pair and a red and diamante pair. They were all fantastic but the red and diamante pair clinched it, and they were only £20.﻿

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About Me

I'm a 47 year old woman with a rebellious streak who loves cats, black and white films on rainy days, fresh ground coffee, going to the theatre, laughing till it hurts, log fires, a good cry occasionally and cakes with butter cream icing! I'm a great organiser so planning my wedding was going to be a piece of cake (with butter cream icing), right? WRONG! With a small budget, unconventional taste, a plus size figure, TWO mothers (adoptive and birth), a sick father, a grieving groom and a high pressured job to contend with I found the experience stressful, painful and seemingly impossible but read how I overcame every challenge and celebrated the most wonderful wedding day of my dreams!!